Movie No. 176 (2013): SARONG BANGGI

Sarong Banggi (2005)
Director: Emmanuel dela Cruz
Cast: Jaclyn Jose, Angelo Ilagan
In Tagalog, with English subtitles

This film was an entry in the 2005 Cinemalaya Film Festival. I didn't hear about the film until Jaclyn Jose won an Urian Best Actress award for this film in 2006. Urian noticed her performance in what looked like a film nobody saw. That made me curious. After 7 years, I finally got to see it. The film is really worth seeing if only for Jaclyn Jose's controlled acting. For me, that's the best she'd done in her acting career, so far. Her thinking-aloud scenes and monologues are the best part of the movie. Angelo Ilagan's innocent-looking face is perfect for his role, which he used effectively. For a neophyte actor, his performance is more than passable. 

In the movie, Jaclyn Jose is Melba, a prostitute in her late 30s. She still looks beautiful. Angelo is Nyoy, a teenager who is about to be 'baptized' into manhood. The night Melba and Nyoy meet is the night before Nyoy's (probably eighteenth) birthday. For Melba, it's just one ordinary night of hooking. For Nyoy, it's something else. But fate plays a cruel and twisted game on them. That night will change one of them, or both of them forever.

While the twist appears overused in a lot of movies and TV series, it still manages to make the movie worth seeing, almost a breath of relatively fresh air. It's the aftermath of that twist that matters, and will always matter. The movie is bittersweet. Maybe sad. Or liberating. But's it's a really good movie.

Rating: 3.5/4.0

Date seen: October 14, 2013